Kirk in TOS was so ridiculously young for his job that they made a point of it in the writers guide.

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What they wrote in the writer's guide doesn't matter. They could've had a good chip dip recipe in there too.

What we saw on screen was a 35 year-old actor depicting a character who was never noted for being a particularly young captain. What we are shown on screen implied a man who was a decade older than his Junior Officers. Consider the conversation McCoy and Kirk have about Lt. Bailey and how Kirk is pushing him because he reminds him of the young man who was so many years ago.

He certainly does not seem like an old-man, but he doesn't seem wet behind the ears either. He seems like a Hornblower-type, an ambitious and capable officer, not too young for the job, but not delayed in the career ruts of less glorified officers. Consider, for example, that one can get a four-year-degree in four years, and compare that to the reality where most people do it in 5 1/2 or more. Kirk is one of those guys who gets it done in four.

Chekov is Chekov, that's why he's there. This kind of hair-splitting is like the old joke about the historian who tried to prove that Hamlet wasn't written by William Shakespeare, but by another guy named William Shakespeare.

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I know, it's like fans of franchises enjoy talking about these stories in detail or something. It's like they could fill entire forums with threads dedicated to facts that non-fans don't care about. If you ever run into a board like that, I suggest that you flee!

As a result Chekov may have entered into the academy at a different time, his interests may have changed in relation to his studies ultimately making a slightly different person from the PRIME Chekov.

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But that doesn't explain the overt difference in the two Chekovs' ages. Chekov Prime explicitly gave his age as 22 in "Who Mourns for Adonais" (2267), and Abramsverse Chekov explicitly gave his age as 17 in the movie (2258), so there's a 4-year discrepancy.

Of course, there is one simpler explanation: Chekov Prime could've actually been 26 in "Adonais" but was claiming to be younger for some reason. But why would he pretend to be more inexperienced than he actually was? Normally you'd expect someone of that age and status to pretend to be older, not younger.

There's always the fallback idea that maybe he didn't mean 22 Earth years, but given that he's pretty clearly from Russia, why would he use a different planet's calendar?

Why would that have been "required"? Chekov being younger (although born earlier) than in TOS doesn't really serve any specific purpose other than allowing McCoy to doubt his abilities until he proves his youthful genius. Chekov being the same age as in TOS would work out just fine in those terms, since the storyline perfectly well accommodates undergraduates in Kirk's posse: a thirteen-year-old genius first-year cadet would fit right in.

That is, making nu-Chekov a graduate at seventeen after it has been spelled out that most people spend four years or more at Starfleet Academy requires us to believe that he enrolled at thirteen. (Or at something like sixteen, if he was even more driven and clever than nu-Kirk, but still...) It sort of undermines the one thing that is special about the career path of the main hero.

Betcha they made Chekov 17 in the movie just to piss off the Wesley haters.

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I think they did it because making him 13 (which he would've been if they hadn't changed his age) would've been even more Wesley-like.

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There you go.

It's too bad that they went with the "Muppet Babies" approach to TOS. TOS depicted people of different ages, who graduated with different classes, and had different professional lives before they served on the Enterprise. Now, they'll have been joined at the hip since their early 20s. Why shouldn't Uhura be Captain? She's a clever kid from the same Starfleet class? Or why not genius Chekov? Why should Kirk have command?

It's too bad they chickened out on the hard reboot. We could've just started at year one. Kirk gets his new command. Spock has already been there for eleven years and has been (apparently) passed over for promotion to captain. That's enough for a little tension right there (not the breaking-reason-off-at-the-hinges-suspended-cadet-becomes-captain-in-a-day tension in the 09 film).

Either that, or you really do it Hornblower style if you want to go deeper into the past. We meet Kirk as a Jr. Officer and watch him climbing the ranks, occasionally meeting people who he would serve with later and acquiring a ring of friends (e.g., Mitchell), some of whom could be killed off before he arrives at his first command.

No one "chickened out" on anything. They did it the way they thought would make the most entertaining movie, and moviegoers rewarded them by making the movie a tremendous success. That trumps trekkie complaints.

No one "chickened out" on anything. They did it the way they thought would make the most entertaining movie,

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Just about every major motion picture is a compromise. Compromising involves yielding certain goals, sometimes out of narrative necessity, sometimes due to external pressure (e.g., studio heads demand certain scenes be inserted or removed, audience pressure, limited shooting schedule, running out of money). Sometimes internal pressures compete with internal pressures (the beauty of a depiction vs. the needs of pacing). Sometimes external pressures compete with external pressures (the cost of a shot vs. the amount of budget available). Sometimes internal goals conflict with external realities.

It is very clear that the new team wanted to start fresh. They wanted to cut away a lot of narrative baggage.

It is also clear that they felt the need to appease the faithful, by coming up with a conceit whereby the new universe would somehow be connected with the old and where the fans could be comfortable in the knowledge that the TNG history had not been overwritten.

The compromise was the Spock time travel and branching universe. To the extent that the internal goal (start fresh) compromised to external pressure (respect the old!), the creators chickened out on their immediate goal of rebooting. The Muppet Babies Academy Kids was one impact of the narrative choice made to strike this compromise.

Their goal was not to make the most entertaining movie for them, but to create the film that would generate the most money. If I went to a studio head and told him he could invest in the most entertaining film ever made or the most profitable film ever made, ten times out of ten, he would invest in the latter. Entertainment is a mere instrumentality. There is international political pressure (such as when China tells Hollywood when to change the villain), sometimes political correctness kicks in. Sometimes the demands of actors create limitations. Yielding to these pressures does not necessarily make the most entertaining film (i.e., if such things were pushed back against, the audience would have X more utiles of entertainment from the film), but filmmakers are worried about cost and expediency, so entertainment is just one factor.

It's a legitimate criticism. If you're pointing out a "problem" that, apparently, very few of the movie-going public were bothered by, then it's not really a problem, is it?

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If the valuation of the quality of a film simply boiled down to box office receipts, then we would simply ask if a film turned a profit and how much. Film criticism would be reduced to accounting. Film discussion would reduce to public polling. By this metric, we would have to estimate Twilight as greater than every other film that it earned more money than. We would be forced to say that the Spice Girls eclipsed the Beatles in quality once they sold more records.

At most, it is defeasible position. That is, if a film is popular, then it passes a prima facie test as "not being terrible." Of course, it was never my contention that the film was terrible (indeed, I thought Trek 09 was better than most Trek films). And this brings us to another point, the argument is not only defeasible, but is coarse-grained. That is, appeal to general sentiment only offers us an "on face" test for general quality. It has nothing to do with particular criticisms (such as those claiming, as I do, that it was good overall, but this aspect could have been even better).

The mistake is two-fold. One, appealing to a weak inductive argument as it if were strong (i.e., conversation stopping proof). Two, it fails to recognize that the face test is to coarse grained to offer a challenge to particularized criticisms.

I didn't say that I personally didn't know how to respond, but rather that a person "one" (anyone would) scarcely know how to respond (i.e., they know how to respond, but the position is so mistaken, that you have to really back track to 101 aesthetics and logic to point out what's wrong with it).

Uhura's bi-lingual ability was established in the first episode, "The Man Trap", when she spoke both Swahili and English. We learn in "The Changeling" that she has an aptitude for mathematics. And, in the sixth movie, that she was chairing a seminar at the Academy, thus implying that she was a highly-respected individual by other communication officers.

As for her age, we learn in ST III that she is a "...twenty-year space..." veteran. She is first seen in 2266 as a lieutenant on the Enterprise. It's conceivable that she graduated the Academy in 2265, completed a tour of duty, and was assigned to the Enterprise.

There is confusion on the age of Captain Pike. In the "Menagerie", he is described as having roughly the same age as Captain Kirk.

It is very clear that the new team wanted to start fresh. They wanted to cut away a lot of narrative baggage.

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According to Abrams and co on the DVD extras, Spock going back in time was plan A. They didn't have to repect the old, but they chose to.

It is also clear that they felt the need to appease the faithful, by coming up with a conceit whereby the new universe would somehow be connected with the old and where the fans could be comfortable in the knowledge that the TNG history had not been overwritten.

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The branching history thing appears to have been a late addition to the story. In the early script at IMSDB, Spock deliberately goes back in time by opening a second black hole (not knowing exactly how far into the past he would be deposited), to have another chance to save Romulus.
The idea that the original timeline continues exists only in an easter egg-like reference during Spock's schooling, where one of the students answers is "Anything that can happen, does happen, is equal parallel realities."

The compromise was the Spock time travel and branching universe. To the extent that the internal goal (start fresh) compromised to external pressure (respect the old!), the creators chickened out on their immediate goal of rebooting. The Muppet Babies Academy Kids was one impact of the narrative choice made to strike this compromise.

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Remember The Motion Picture, where an Enterprise refit was used as the excuse to change everything? It's a handwave, which while sort-of explaining why the ship now looks a big-budget design from 1979, absolutely fails to explain anything else, like why the Klingons were essentially replaced with a completely different species or why Vulcan, which we'd previously been told "has no moon", had a very busy sky indeed.

It's the same thing in nuTrek. A handwave which covers most of the changes - the rest are up to the viewers' willing suspension of disbelief. As far as I'm concerned, one line from Chekov in "Who Mourns For Adonais?" is NOT a deal breaker, any more than any of the other rewrites in Trek history. Fun to pick holes in, yes (see videos in my sig), but they certianly don't ruin my enjoyment of the product.

Of course you did. Sure, it was worded in such a way as to facilitate the sort of side-step you were attempting, but the implication was clear enough.

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If that were true, I would've been unable to provide the reductio that appears before that statement.

Also, one should note the use of the word "scarcely." If you are reading hyper-literally (unable or unwilling to recognize the use of that trope known as hyperbole), even the literal meaning of "scarcely" does NOT indicate "that which is impossible," but rather "that which is achieved with great effort or by a small margin." In short, it does not mean that one is without answer, but that one is almost unaware of how to reply.

If there is anything of the original topic (character ages) which yet remains to be explored, perhaps you ought to return to that now, and leave off with the "clever" games.

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I got my answer and (bonus!) a structural diagnosis for why Chekov is a whiz-kid. My thanks to those who had the stardates and to Timo and Christopher for pointing out the structural ramifications of putting everyone in the same Starfleet class (i.e., Kirk has to be a little younger, Chekov has to be a little older, but even then he is noticeably younger than the rest of the crew, hence the need to make him a whiz-kid).